


we made a bloodoath (we swore we'd do it better)

by wafflesofdoom



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Families of Choice, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24421921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: buck hadn't exactly expected the birth of his niece to drag up a lifetime of memories and feelings about his own parents, his own family - but it does, and maybe, just maybe, its time for buck to start to deal with where he came from, and where he is now, and how that all connects.but he's never been ready to.(now, he has to.)or, buckley begins.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 28
Kudos: 180





	we made a bloodoath (we swore we'd do it better)

Buck was sitting on the floor of the hospital hallway when he heard the cry – the unfamiliar sound of a baby’s first ever cry, the sound jarring against the quiet background of the hallway. He couldn’t stop the tears that bubbled up in his chest, his heart feeling as though it was expanding in his chest as he realised that was his niece, he was listening to cry – his **_niece_**. Buck had been trying to comprehend the impending arrival of Maddie and Chim’s little girl for months, and the idea of being someone’s uncle still overwhelmed him.

He couldn’t imagine what Maddie and Chim were feeling, there and then.

Wiping at his tears, knowing his cheeks were red, and splotchy (he had never been the most attractive crier), Buck leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes as he listened to the sound of his niece crying as loud as she possibly could.

 _That’s my girl_.

“Buck.”

Buck looked up as he heard his name being called, Chimney standing in the doorway, an ear splitting smile fixed in place, looking as though he was fit to burst. Buck couldn’t blame him – he’d only been a dad for twenty minutes or so, after all.

“Come meet your niece,” Chim nodded his head toward the room, Buck practically scrambling to his feet at his friend’s words, pausing to give Chim a tight hug.

“Congratulations, man,” Buck beamed, barely waiting for Chim’s acknowledgment of his words before he was making his way inside the room, his heart thundering in his chest as he looked at Maddie, his wonderful sister Maddie, sitting in a hospital bed with a tiny bundle of blankets in her arms.

“Evan,” Maddie beamed at him tiredly, gesturing for him to come closer. “Come here, meet your niece,” she said, waiting for Buck to be standing next to her before she titled her arms slightly, revealing her daughter. She had quietened down, slightly, though her face was still scrunched up in an unhappy furrow, a tuft of dark hair peeking out from underneath the tiny pink hat on her head.

“She’s beautiful, Maddie,” Buck managed to get the words out, beaming at his sister.

“Evan,” Maddie said, throwing a smile in Chimney’s direction. “Meet your niece – your goddaughter. Olivia Evan Han.”

If Buck wasn’t an _actual_ first responder with basic EMT training, he might think he was having a heart attack, there and then, with the way his heart seemed to do its best to escape out through his throat as his niece’s name sunk in.

They’d named her after _him_.

“W-what?”

“Maybe it’s not a very conventional girls name,” Maddie shrugged. “But who else would I name her after, Buck?”

“Are you trying to make me cry?” Buck demanded, wiping roughly at his eyes, looking between Maddie, and Chimney. “Are you – “

“If that sentence ends with ‘sure’, I’m not sure I can stop Maddie from murdering you on the stop,” Chimney interjected, Buck swallowing the rest of his question quickly. “Buck, of course we’re sure!” he reassured, Maddie nodding her agreement.

“Yeah, you’re definitely trying to make me cry,” Buck sniffled, using the end of his sleeve to wipe at his nose, ignoring the motherly way Maddie swatted at him for doing just that, the action familiar enough that it made Buck feel ten again.

“Do you want to hold her?” Maddie asked.

Buck nodded eagerly, making grabby hands at the tiny bundle. “Yes, please,” he said, practically tripping over his own words to say it quickly enough, making both Maddie and Chimney laugh.

“Put on a show, Liv,” Chimney grinned, his words a stage whisper. “Cry as loud as you possibly can.”

Maddie rolled her eyes at her boyfriends antics, passing a snoozing Olivia over to Buck. Buck carefully took Olivia from his sister, cradling her gently. She was tinier, somehow, now he was holding her himself, small enough that he could probably hold her in one hand, if he was being less careful about it.

But Buck wanted to be careful with her.

“Hi,” Buck greeted softly, smiling as Olivia wriggled in his arms, still sleeping. “Hi, sweetheart,” he hushed. “I’m your uncle Buck.”

“He doesn’t get that reference, does he?” Buck vaguely registered Chimney saying in the background, Maddie hushing him.

“I’ll take care of you, I promise,” Buck said quietly, kissing one of Olivia’s tiny hands. “She’s got your nose, Maddie,” he commented, glancing up at her sister, shocked to see tears pouring down her cheeks, her breath coming in hiccups. “Why are you crying, Mads?”

Maddie shook her head, using the edge of her hospital blanket to dry her eyes. “She does have the Buckley nose,” she confirmed, pointing to the slight bump in her nose that Buck knew was mirrored in his own nose.

Buck glanced down at the tiny bundle in his arms, nodding. “She does,” he confirmed. “She’s got the best of the Buckley’s.”

“Yes,” Maddie said fiercely, reaching for her brother’s waist, tugging on his jumper so that Buck was forced to sit on the edge of her hospital bed, still holding Olivia closely. “Me and you, Evan, we’re the best of the Buckley’s, and that is all she needs. Right?”

Buck did his best to hold Maddie’s intense gaze, knowing Chimney was probably watching on curiously. “Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s all she needs.”

James and Patricia Buckley got married on June 3, 1979, in a Catholic Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Evan Buckley didn’t know this because his parents celebrated their anniversary with any great enthusiasm, or love – no, Evan knew this because it was the sort of thing you were supposed to know about your parents, and so he had asked Maddie.

If Evan ever had a question, he asked Maddie – that was just how life worked. Maddie had the answers to most of his questions, and even when she didn’t know, she’d find out, for him. That was why she was the best big sister in the world.

Maddie was ten whole years older than he was. Evan wasn’t even ten yet, so that felt like a big number. Maddie said it didn’t matter, that she was older than him – Evan was still her best friend, and that made Evan happy.

He liked being Maddie’s best friend.

Being Maddie’s best friend meant that she would let him sleep in her bed when he was having nightmares, and she would sneak him an ice-cream, even on the days where their parents had said there was no treats allowed, and she would take him to the park and run around with him, even though she was older, and she was cooler than he was.

Evan liked going to the park with Maddie. 

She pushed him high on the swings, and you couldn’t do that when you went to the park alone.

Evan went to the park alone a lot.

The other kids thought it was weird, but Evan had never really understood why. He wasn’t sure who was supposed to take him to the park when Maddie was busy – so he went on his own, because otherwise he would be bored.

Evan didn’t like being bored. When he was bored, he – his parents would be angry, because Evan was too loud sometimes.

His parents liked to keep a quiet house.

That was something else Maddie had taught him.

Louise would remind him of that when Maddie wasn’t there. Louise was nice. She hugged Evan, every time he would come to the kitchen while she was making dinner. Sometimes, she’d even sit him on the kitchen counter and let him help her stir the pot.

That was nice, too, because Evan always got to taste things before they were finished, and he loved to eat.

 _Growing boys need to eat_ – that was what Louise said, always giving him an extra big helping at dinner.

Evan was a growing boy.

He knew that because he would always grow out of his trousers too quickly, and Louise would take him to the store and buy new ones – always the same ones, plain and tan in colour, because that was what his parents liked best.

You were supposed to keep your parents happy.

Maddie had taught him that, too.

That was why Evan sat down at the piano every evening, practicing until his fingers were sore, even though he hated it, even though he found it boring, because it made his parents happy. Mom would smile, sometimes, when she’d stop by the living room to listen to him play for a minute. She looked kind, when she smiled, and so Evan tried his best to make her smile more.

It didn’t always work.

Sometimes, she would walk past the living room without stopping to listen, and Evan would cry. He knew – he _knew_ he shouldn’t cry like that, really, but Evan cried a lot. Maddie said there was nothing wrong with it, but Evan knew there was.

Other boys didn’t cry like he did.

But sometimes he couldn’t help it. Sometimes, he would sit at the piano and cry until Maddie came home, and she would pick him up, and make him a hot chocolate, and they’d hide under her bed and Maddie would tell him stories about princes and dragons until he was ready to sleep, and then she’d tuck him in, and sing him a lullaby, and Evan wouldn’t want to cry, anymore.

Evan really loved Maddie.

Buck had always loved kids. For as long as he could remember, he loved kids. His aunt Rebecca had a baby when Buck was twelve, and he’d doted on him, always wanting to hold Casey when they would come for dinner. Rebecca found it endearing, he remembered – Rebecca had always liked him a lot. His parents would fuss and say Evan needed to focus on his schoolwork, his piano lessons, but Buck would spent hours just watching Casey sleep in his basket.

Kids were the best. They were so new to the world, so precious and wonderful and so devoid of complication. Buck liked that – he liked to be able to be drawn back to a time in his life where he had been so blissfully unaware of the realities of the world. The team would tease, but Buck didn’t mind.

He probably _was_ a child at heart, all things considered.

“Hello, hello,” Chimney greeted from the top of the firehouse stairs, holding Olivia’s car-seat tightly in one hand.

Buck was out of his chair before Chimney could even finish his sentence, grinning at his sister’s boyfriend. “Gimme!” he grinned, gesturing at Olivia. Chimney rolled his eyes but passed the car seat over to Buck without protest, making his own grabby hands at the pot of coffee on the kitchen counter.

“Hi, beautiful girl,” Buck gushed, easing Olivia out of her car seat and holding her close to his chest, unable to stop himself from sniffing that familiar, powdery lavender smell that seemed to linger around her. Olivia squirmed for a second before she settled, snoozing against Buck’s shoulder.

“He’s the baby whisperer,” Chimney commented, chugging his coffee. “The other morning, nothing Maddie or I did would get her to settle, and Buck here, just walks in with donuts and coffee, picks her up and says hello, and she chills out.”

Bobby grinned at Buck. “People would kill for that magic touch, Buck.”

“Enough about Buck,” Hen swatted at her partner. “Introduce us properly, Chim!”

“I’m so tired,” Chimney groaned. “Buck, you do it.”

Hen slapped the side of Chimney’s head, jolting the man out of the seat he’d slumped in. “This is your **_child_** , Howard Han,” she threatened.

“Fine, fine,” Chimney rolled his eyes, gesturing at Buck. “Team, meet my daughter – Olivia Evan Han.”

No matter how many times he heard it, knowing Olivia carried his name made Buck beam like a madman. He turned Olivia gently in his arms, so she was cradled in the crook of his arm, Hen realising she was going to get nowhere with a sleep deprived Chimney, moving to coo over the little girl in Buck’s arms.

“How much did Buck cry when you told him?” Eddie asked with a grin, throwing Buck a good-natured wink.

“Oh, an embarrassing amount,” Buck confirmed himself, gently passing Olivia over to an eager Hen. “I was dehydrated.”

“Maddie made me go and get him a Gatorade because she was genuinely a bit concerned,” Chimney teased, the story not entirely untrue. Buck had cried quite a lot, after he and Maddie had decided that her daughter already had the best of the Buckley’s.

The team didn’t need to know the specifics of why that had been such an emotional thing to say. Buck – he had never talked much about his family, in all the years he’d been at the 118, and there was good reason for that. He was a firm believer in some things just not being worth anyone’s time, and his parents fell into that category.

“She’s beautiful, Chim,” Eddie murmured, brushing a thumb against Olivia’s cheek as she continued to sleep in Hen’s arms.

“Do you want to hold her?” Hen asked, realising she was probably hogging the tiny bundle. Buck couldn’t blame her, really – he’d probably hold Olivia and keep her all to himself forever if he could.

Eddie looked a bit nervous, Buck noted, but he nodded all the same, gently taking Olivia from Hen’s arms. She let out a grumpy noise, and Eddie hushed her quietly, rocking his arms slightly. “Sorry we’re playing pass the parcel with you,” he murmured, glancing up. “I forgot how tiny they are, when they’re first born,” he admitted. “I missed this stage with Chris.”

Before the conversation could continue, the alarm went, and Buck couldn’t help but feel sorry for Chimney as the obnoxious sound made Olivia cry, Eddie hurriedly passing the baby back to her dad.

“No, don’t leave me!” Chimney pleaded, trying to rock Olivia back to asleep, despite the alarm continuing to blare. “Buck! I will give you a hundred dollars if you stay behind and help me.”

Buck couldn’t help but laugh, dropping Chimney a wink before he headed for one of the fire poles. “No can do, Chim,” he said, apologetic. “I’ve got to get busy saving the world.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Chimney huffed, holding Olivia close. “You owe me babysitting time, Buckley!”

“Thank you,” Maddie breathed dreamily, taking the coffee Buck was offering her. “You are a lifesaver, Evan Buckley. What would I do without you?”

Buck laughed, pressing a kiss to the side of Maddie’s head. “I’m mostly here for Olivia,” he admitted. “And I know it’s Chim’s first shift back since she was born, so I figured you might appreciate the company,” he said. “Feel free to kick me out if I’m wrong.”

Maddie shook her head, taking a gulp of her coffee. “I’m always happy to have you here Evan, you know that, right?”

Buck swallowed thickly. “I know, I just – I feel like I’m around a lot, and I don’t want to invade you and Chim’s life,” he said. “She’s your daughter.”

“And you’re my brother,” Maddie tugged on Buck’s chin, fixing him with a serious glare. “You are my family, Buck, and you’re welcome to be here as much as you want. Sometimes, I think about asking you to move in, you’re so good with her.”

Buck couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, Mads,” he said. “But you can kick me out of you get sick of me, okay? Just – promise me you will, if I get annoying.”

Buck had never been much of a fan of sympathy, or pity, and he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole as he saw the look of pity on Maddie’s face as he spoke.

“Evan…”

“Maddie, don’t, please.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Maddie retorted sharply. “Buck – you know you’re not annoying, right? No matter what mom – “

“Don’t,” Buck interrupted, unable to hear the words he knew were about to come next. He – he’d left Pennsylvania at twenty-two, and he hadn’t gone back, and he’d done that for a reason. He wasn’t – he wasn’t sure he could have this conversation even now, close to six years on.

“Evan,” Maddie had look on her face she always got when she was about to try and talk Buck down from something or give him life advice. Sometimes – sometimes he didn’t mind it. But this time, he did.

“I don’t want to bring them up, Maddie,” Buck shook his head. “What’s there to say, anymore?”

(Madeline Patricia Buckley was born at 11.07am on November 20, 1982, and the first nanny the Buckley family ever employed, Alison, arrived on November 21, and she stayed until Maddie was eight years old. Maddie’s first memories were mostly of Alison – of her nanny playing with her, brushing her hair out, singing her lullabies.

Maddie missed her, after she left, but Louise, their new housekeeper, started a few weeks later. Maddie hadn’t really liked their old housekeeper – Marisa had been a tough woman, not all that kind. But Louise was kind. She was young – very young, Maddie realised in hindsight – and she was kind, and soft, and the kind of person Maddie imagined a mother should be.

Life was fine.

That was the thing, Maddie supposed – she had never wanted for anything in her life. The best clothes, and toys, and expensive instruments, sports gear, places at the most exclusive summer camps in the country, a place in private school. She’d never gone hungry, or cold.

But the Buckley household had never been a very loving place.

Sometimes, Maddie just thought her parents were two people who should never have been parents. Patricia Buckley was a hugely successful criminal defence attorney, and James Buckley was heir to the Buckley family empire. James Buckley Senior had inherited a weapons development company from his own father, and he had turned a small family business into one of the biggest weapons producers in the United States. James Buckley Junior, Maddie’s father, had inherited it, and done the same, and done all the things you were supposed to do when your family was sitting on millions of dollars – he invested, in restaurants and bars and start ups and stock, and property across Pennsylvania, a house in the Hamptons, one in the Bahamas, another in France, another two in the Hamptons, a mansion in Florida he planned to retire to.

You name it, her father owned it.

But money didn’t make up for the lack of warmth there had always been in the Buckley home. Her parents weren’t loving people – not with each other, not with Maddie, and certainly not with Buck.

James Evan Buckley was born on June 27, 1992, and it was the best day of her life. Maddie had always wanted a sibling, someone to share her childhood and home with, and maybe it had taken ten years for it to happen, but that didn’t matter, not when she got to hold this tiny screaming bundle in her arms and promise she was going to be the best big sister in the world.

She’d tried to be, Maddie had really tried to be. They’d gotten a new nanny, when Evan was five days old, a kindly woman called Peggy who had raised Evan for the first five years of his life. Maddie still remembered how Evan had cried, when Peggy had left, to a new family, leaving Evan in the care of Maddie and Louise.

She was never sure why they sent Peggy away so many years before Maddie’s own nanny had finished raising her, but Maddie learned at a young age that you didn’t question her parents. James and Patricia’s decisions were final, and that was a fact of life. The sky was blue, and you didn’t argue with your attorney mother.

With Peggy gone, Maddie had thrown herself into her big sister role, playing with Evan, always the one to battle against his tangled blond curls at bath-time, rocking him to sleep when he’d get a nightmare, always singing the same lullaby.

The same lullaby she sang to her own daughter now.

Sometimes, Maddie looked at Olivia, and she felt so angry with her own parents she worried she might burst, with the heat of it all. How could they have looked at her, and Evan, and felt anything less than earth-shifting, life altering love? Maddie would never understand why they had always felt kids should be seen, and not heard – not when Olivia’s yawns, her squeaks, even her crying, were the best sounds she’d ever heard in her 37 years of life.

She definitely would never understand why her parents thought Buck was annoying.

Kids weren’t annoying. They were curious, and hyperactive, and trying their best to learn about the world through muddied knees, and silly games, and that was all a part of life. But they had drummed it into Evan’s head from a young age that his curiosity was a problem, not a strength.

Maddie had been jealous of his curiosity – Evan had always been so curious about the world, about how it worked, about new cities and countries and foods he hadn’t tried. Maddie had never cared, as much. Sure, she’d enjoyed their summers spent in the Hamptons, on sunny beaches – but Evan had thrived, enjoying every second of the trips they had taken to Europe, practically bursting out of his skin as they visited Rome, and Paris, and Berlin, and London.

His lingering curiosity had been the first thing Maddie had noticed about Buck when she’d come to Los Angeles – the books scattered around Abby’s apartment had been so clearly Buck’s, books about obscure traditions and faraway places and wars long since passed, Buck always eager to fill his brain with as much knowledge as he could get his hands on.

She was glad he hadn’t lost that, in all the years he’d spent in the cold Buckley house without her.

_‘What’s there to say, anymore?’_

So much. So, so much – but Buck needed to want to talk about it, or there would be no point at all.

Watching as he brother sang a familiar lullaby to her daughter, his husky voice washing over her tired body, Maddie felt tears well up in her eyes.

She loved her brother so damn much.)

Buck didn’t actually think about his parents all that much, anymore. They called, every couple of months – usually it would be his mom who called, and he’d be put on speaker, to update both his mom and dad on his life. They were brief phone-calls – the kind of fifteen minute low-downs you could set your watch by – and that was fine by him.

It was Louise, who he called more often than not. Their housekeeper still worked for his parents – though Buck had been trying to get her to retire, something she refused to do, no matter how many times Buck had offered her money to make it possible. He didn’t like idea of her still working in that cold, empty house, with only his mother and father for company.

Still, they texted. Buck would send her photos of California, and Louise would send him photos of the snow, during the winter, reminding him that his snowboard was still in the attic if he ever made his way back over to the east coast again, one day.

He probably should go back, one day.

(He definitely wouldn’t, though.)

Hen’s innocent question dragged Buck out of his reverie and back to reality, squinting across Bobby and Athena’s garden at his friend. “So,” Hen asked, cooing over a sleeping Olivia. “Are your parents going to come out and visit?” she directed at Maddie.

Buck felt like there was something clawing at the inside of his throat as he waited for Maddie to reply, not trusting himself to speak.

“I don’t think so,” Maddie said, unphased. “They don’t like to travel.”

Buck couldn’t help but snort at that one, drawing everyone’s attention. “Sorry,” he lied. “Beer went down the wrong way. Anyone want another one?” he was standing before anyone could reply, heading for the kitchen and the stock of cold beers he knew were waiting in the fridge.

(Maddie glanced around their gathered friends and family, giving them an apologetic smile. “Our parents aren’t bad people, not really,” she said, and it was the truth – they weren’t monsters, either of them. “They just weren’t very good parents. We were – we were both pretty lonely sometimes, growing up. Buck, more than me. That’s all it is.”)

Buck could hear Maddie from his position hovering in the kitchen, and he couldn’t help but feel bad. Maddie wasn’t exactly wrong. Their parents weren’t bad people – he’d never gone hungry, or cold, or anything. But they hadn’t been good parents, and Evan hadn’t been the kind of son they had wanted. That hadn’t been easy to deal with.

Not being wanted was a tough pill to swallow.

Buck wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

But he – he was wanted now, with these people, his friends, his co-workers, the family he’d made for himself.

He didn’t need anything else.

“Do you ever talk to Chimney, about our family?” Buck asked one quiet morning, he and Maddie on a walk in his sister’s local park, the early spring sunshine warm against the bare skin of his arms. He had always liked this time of year, when it felt like the world was just defrosting from a long winter, and warmth was beginning to bring the world back to life.

“Sometimes,” Maddie said. “They’ve met him, on the phone at least – I’ve video-called them a few times since Olivia was born.”

“Aren’t you mad they haven’t come to visit?”

Maddie paused, seemingly not caring that they were in the middle of the footpath, blocking other peoples routes. “I think I’d have been more surprised if they had come.”

Evan (just Evan – he’d never been called James, not by his family, and he didn’t plan to start in high school) made the Trinity High School basketball team his freshman year, and finally got himself a real nickname. Evan was a pretty common name, to be fair, and after refusing to let his coach call him James, one of his new teammates had come up with a pretty good compromise, and Buck had stuck.

Buck was cool. Buck – Buck wasn’t Evan, and Buck was glad of that.

He didn’t always want to be Evan.

Somehow, over the course of that first year, he became Buck, this bright, loud persona who played stellar basketball, and had more friends than he could count, the kind of guy that people wanted to date.

Evan felt more performative. Evan was more subdued – quiet, and calm, and played the piano for the children’s orchestra in Harrisburg, and volunteered with a local food bank on a Sunday (“It’s important to show we can give back to our community, Evan, by being a part of it – you can’t throw money at all your duties,” his father had chastised one day when Evan had suggested their family just make a big donation, instead – that would do more good than the Saturday mornings he spent making up food parcels. He could easily help ten times more if he was allowed to dip into the trust fund that was waiting for him.)

Evan was the perfect son. Evan got straight A’s, and was a talented piano player, and Evan would fly through high school and he’d apply for the best colleges in the country; and he’d get in, because it wouldn’t do for a Buckley to attend anything less than one of the very best schools in the country, and presumably, somewhere along the way, Evan would find a nice girl, and marry her, and settle down, and take over the family business, and have 2.5 kids and a mansion with a white picket fence.

Buck had always found the expectations hardest to deal with. He was the fifth James Buckley in a line of very successful James Buckley’s, and there was a weight of expectation that came with that, that came with knowing you were heir to the Buckley empire.

The expectations had been what made him want to go off the rails a little.

With Maddie away, and married, and living her life away from the suffocating expectations of their family, Buck had been left to his own devices, and well – he was good at keeping up his Evan persona, all while discovering exactly who Buck was.

Buck was the kind of guy to sneak in late on a school night, uniform balled up in his duffle bag, the smell of alcohol lingering on his breath.

Louise was always the one who caught him, sneaking in.

Her disappointment always hurt more than his parents disappointment did, anyway.

“Evan,” Louise sighed, brushing a hand gently around Buck’s cheek. “What are you doing, hm? You’re lucky your parents didn’t think to ask where you were.”

“They never care,” Buck muttered, alcohol flowing through his veins and making him reckless, his filter long since gone.

“Maybe they don’t care in the way you want them to, or need them to,” Louise said, directing him to one of the chairs at the kitchen island, sitting him down. “But I think they do care, Evan. I sure do wish they’d show it differently too, but I’ve worked for your family for long enough to know that’s not going to happen.”

Buck sighed, slumping at the kitchen island. “I had a game, last weekend,” he mumbled. “Maddie couldn’t come, so there was no one there. No one, Louise. You know how that feels? To be the only kid on the team who never has anyone at their games? Coach – he keeps asking, and asking to meet my parents, and every time I have to come up with an excuse. Oh, dad is away on business. Mom has a big case going on.”

“Evan, honey – “

“They don’t want me,” Buck blurted, unable to stop the tears welling up in his eyes. “They’ve never wanted me, Lou. They barely wanted Maddie, and they definitely don’t want me.”

“Stop it,” Louise warned, setting a glass of water down in front of them. “God knows, I don’t pretend to understand your parents all that much, Evan, but you are wanted. Okay? You are a wonderful boy, and I might not be your mom, but I am proud of you all the same. So, next time you have a game, you’re going to tell me, and I’ll be there, and I’ll bring Frank, and the kids.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Buck mumbled tiredly, trying to force himself to take a sip of the water.

“It’s a good thing I want to then, isn’t it?” Louise said, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Now, let me iron your uniform before I head home – I don’t think I want to know how long it’s been in your bag for.”

Buck looked sadly at the bag he’d dropped on the counter, shaking his head. “You’ve stayed late enough, Lou, I can do it.”

“Though I am normally impressed with your ironing skills, Evan, you’re a bit too drunk to be handling an iron,” Louise said, unzipping the bag and pulling his crumpled uniform out, plugging the iron in to heat up.

She was quiet for a second, and Buck couldn’t help but look up. “What’s wrong?” he mumbled.

Louise held the opened box of condoms up, raising an eyebrow. “Do me and you need to have a chat?” she asked.

Buck shook his head, his cheeks flaming red. “No, it’s fine.”

“Evan, honey, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Louise said, rounding the kitchen island so she could take Buck’s hands in her own, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “I just don’t want you going out there, totally clueless.”

Buck snorted, the sound sounding unbelievably loud in the silence of the Buckley house. “Thanks,” he mumbled. “You always do have faith in me.”

“I do,” Louise confirmed. “But I also know you’re a sixteen year old boy who definitely hasn’t had this talk with his parents – and no offence to the wildly overpriced Catholic school your parents send you to, but I don’t think they’ve had it either.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“I didn’t have sex with anyone,” Buck shook his head. “I was curious, I guess – about what condoms felt like,” he felt embarrassed, explaining it aloud – but it was true. It’s not as if Buck wasn’t curious about the actual act of sex, but more than anything, he had just wanted to know what a condom felt like, so he’d bought them in the gas station on the way to a party at his friend’s house.

“Nothing wrong with some good old fashioned curiosity,” Louise reassured. “But when you do decide you want to have sex, make sure you talk about it.”

Buck raised an eyebrow. “With you?”

Louise rolled her eyes, laughing. “Sure, if you need someone to talk to,” she said. “No, I mean with your partner, Evan. Sex doesn’t have to be this big mystery you save for marriage – God knows, I don’t believe in any of that – but you’re so good, Evan, and so kind, and you feel everything a thousand times deeper than anyone else around you. Don’t underestimate the impact that can have on you, when you start dating, and having sex. I don’t want you to give so much of yourself away you don’t feel like you have anything left for yourself.”

Buck was seventeen, when he had sex for the first time. People would probably joke that was late in the game, given his history in Los Angeles, but it hadn’t been – not really. Sara Podlodowski was a girl from his maths class, and at the time, Buck had been pretty certain she was the most beautiful girl on the planet.

He’d asked her out on Valentines Day, his junior year, and they’d dated for a few months before they’d decided to take things the whole way – her words, not his.

It had been his seventeenth birthday, actually.

Pretty good birthday present, if you asked him. It had been nice – awkward fumbling and uncertainty and all. Buck had adored the intimacy of it all, the way being close to Sara had felt as though it began to fill the cavernous gap that had been left as a result of a lifetime of being loved at a distance by his parents, a gap that only widened when Maddie married Doug.

(Evan saw less, and less of her, until suddenly, after Christmas, the year he was eighteen, he stopped seeing her at all.)

The point was, Buck had liked sex from the get-go, and even when he and Sara broke up a few weeks later, because she was moving to Pittsburgh and didn’t want to do long-distance, Buck couldn’t shake the feeling that sex was exactly what he had needed all along.

The first time he hooked up with a girl was also when he was seventeen, a week after Sara had left. Someone had hosted a party – Buck couldn’t really remember who – but he did remember being shoved into a bedroom by Jennifer from senior year and adding a second person to the list of people he’d slept with.

It had kind of snowballed from there. Buck had relished the attention, from girls he knew, and girls he didn’t know, the girl from the next house over on the beach he’d hooked up with one night during their two weeks in the Hamptons, and then the boy he’d tried to quietly sneak out of their house one morning, not realising Louise was there.

“Evan, honey, I don’t care if you like boys, or girls,” Louise had soothed, making Buck breakfast. “I do care that this is the fourth person you’ve snuck out of the house this week alone. Are you doing okay?”

Buck had smiled at her, gratefully accepting the omelette she offered as he gathered all the strength he had so he could lie right to her face. “I’m seventeen, Lou,” he joked. “I’m just having fun.”

Louise hadn’t looked as though she believed him, but dropped it, all the same, pressing a lingering kiss to Buck’s wild curls. “Just don’t keep doing this until there’s nothing left, sweetheart.”

Buck had never really gotten what Louise had meant, all those years ago – or maybe he had, and he’d chosen not to acknowledge it. Either way, it didn’t really hit him until Abby. Abby, Abby, Abby. When they had started talking on the phone, it filled the empty cavern of Buck’s life in ways that scared him right to his core – the softness of it, the intimacy of it all.

He’d never told Abby this, but the night after their first phone conversation, he’d gone on Tinder and picked a girl up, and had perfectly good sex. Buck was good at sex, okay – he had years of practice, and he was good at sex, and he always got the same high from it he did back in high school when he and Sara had nervously fumbled their way through their first time.

But that night, he felt nothing.

It had scared Buck, so he’d tried again. Every night for a whole week, Buck had gone and hooked up with someone new – male, female, who cared. Buck had never given much thought to his sexuality, because he was only ever in it for the sex. He never needed to worry about what it might mean to fall in love with another man, because he had never been in love with anyone before – not a man, or a woman.

He was only in it for the sex.

But at the end of that week – God, Buck had felt empty. He’d felt empty, and tired. Not the physical kind of tired, no, this was the kind of tired that had settled in his bones a long time ago, and he felt lonely, lonelier than he ever had before.

It almost felt like he’d given so much of himself away over the years, trying to protect himself, making sure not to let anyone in, that he’d forgotten how to feel as deeply as he always had – he’d always been the kid at school on the verge of tears for no reason, the teenager in the locker room who was prone to a meltdown after a game gone wrong because Evan Buckley had always felt everything too much.

Until he hadn’t.

Evan Buckley had never been in love, before Abby. Hell, until Abby, he’d only had meaningful, actual feelings involved sex once. Once, in 25 years.

That was pretty fucking sad.

Buck knew was love was. He loved Maddie, he loved Louise, he loved Louise’s kids, and her husband – he even loved his parents, despite it all, because he figured he was biologically wired to not be able to hate anyone, not really, his bitter and twisted words a cover for the hurt he actually felt, deep, down, because pain and love went hand in hand, in their own way.

He’d learned that a long time ago too.

Buck knew he was lucky to have never really had to worry about money. Of all of the things he’d dealt with in his life, money problems had never been one of them, and Buck knew he was lucky, to be in that position. He’d always appreciated it – he had, Buck really had. He’d never worried about whether or not there was going to be money in his bank account, because there was always more money in it than he’d be able to spend, on just himself, and that was before he even touched the trust fund account he had.

So, Buck liked to spend his money – sue him.

_(Ouch – bad wording.)_

He liked to spend his money, and he knew people noticed, but they never asked. He – he always wondered why they never asked. Considering they were the best and bravest on God’s green earth, the LAFD weren’t actually paid all that well. He knew that because sometimes, Hen and Eddie would darkly mutter about the impossibility of raising kids on the LAFD salary.

So, Buck liked to help, in all the ways he could.

One thing he had learned a long time ago was that there were good, and bad ways, to share wealth with people. Buck knew he was kind of the epitome of rich, white, cookie cutter, all-American privilege. He’d taken enough political and social theory classes at college to know that – if life hadn’t already taught him that.

Which is why he did it subtly.

Buck ordered takeout, for the whole team, without even batting an eyelid at the price of feeding twelve hungry firefighters at a time. He would randomly turn up at Eddie’s house with groceries, claiming he knew Eddie was going to feed Christopher chicken nuggets if he didn’t do it. Buck liked to take Denny, and Chris, and Nia for ice-cream, and to outrageously priced museums when he was on babysitting duty. He was driving Chimney’s car, one day, when his was in the shop, and realised it needed a service.

Little things.

Buck liked to do the little things – the things that never drew attention but helped his friends out.

He’d done the big things, too. Buck had made a particularly large anonymous donation to Christopher’s school, asking that the money be used to pay for low-income kids to go to fancy summer camps and on school trips – the kind he knew Eddie would pay for even when he couldn’t, and go without for the sake of his son.

At least this way, Eddie could let Chris do all the things he wanted to – like sleepaway camp – without having to run himself into the ground working every shift Bobby would give him to pay for it.

(And it wasn’t just for Chris – he got to help lots of kids, and that felt good. That felt better than sitting on the money he’d never done a thing to earn except be born a Buckley.)

“Mom and dad have set up a trust fund, for Olivia,” Maddie commented, rocking Olivia’s stroller gently, the two of them sitting outside one of Maddie’s favourite cafes in Santa Monica, having lunch together.

Buck inclined his head slightly. “That’s nice of them,” he said simply.

Maddie sighed. “I guess a part of me had hoped they wouldn’t throw money at their granddaughter and might actually take an interest in her life,” she admitted, pushing her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. “Though, she’s only a couple of months old – maybe it’ll come.”

Buck stayed quiet.

“Or maybe I’m deluding myself,” Maddie hummed, fixing Buck with a curious look. “What do you think I should do?”

“About what?”

“The trust fund,” Maddie said, as if it were entirely obvious.

“Keep it,” Buck shrugged, leaning back in his seat. “She can use it for college, or to go travelling, or she can donate every penny of it to a dog’s home when she’s old enough, if that’s what she wanted. I’ve never seen the point in turning down their money. They’re not going to use it. We’ve used that money for more good than they ever have.”

Buck knew that for a fact. It’s not as though they talked about it, or compared notes, but Buck had been the one with Maddie when she had donated every penny of Doug’s money – and then some – to a women’s shelter in Los Angeles, and he’d quietly set up a monthly rolling donation to the same charity.

Maddie took a sip of her coffee, nodding her agreement. “Can you imagine sitting on the millions of dollars they’ve gone and just – not doing anything with it? I know they’ve got houses all over the world, but they could do so much good with what they have.”

“It’s an argument I’ve had with dad a lot,” Buck admitted, thinking back to all those times Buck had begged, and pleaded with his father to donate some money to something other than his goddamn basketball team.

“You have always had a heart of gold,” Maddie beamed at him, that same loving, motherly smile she had perfected as a child, always making Buck feel warm, like he was making her proud. Buck did – and probably still would – do just about anything to see that smile on Maddie’s face.

Buck returned the smile. “I got that from you, Mads.”

Maddie shook her head, still smiling. “No, Evan,” she disagreed. “That was always all you.”

“Lou!” Evan practically bounced into the kitchen, brandishing a piece of paper over his head as he ran, Maddie following closely behind him. “I made you something!” he declared proudly, laughing delightedly as Louise lifted him onto the kitchen counter, his backpack sliding off one shoulder, one of his knees scuffed from playing, the hem of his uniform shorts grubby enough to have Louise smiling fondly, glad there was a spare pair hanging around the kitchen, waiting to be ironed.

“What have you made me, sweetheart?”

“A thank you!” Evan grinned, brandishing his drawing at her. “Because you always make my favourite food and give me hugs.”

The drawing was a glittery monstrosity, with every colour under the sun painted onto the crisp white paper, the artwork heavy as Louise carefully took it from Evan’s sticky grip, admiring his handiwork.

“Oh, Evan, it’s beautiful!” Louise declared, smothering Evan’s delighted face in kisses. “I’m going to bring it home with me tonight and hang it pride of place on my fridge.”

“Yay!” Evan giggled, holding tightly to Louise’s apron. “I love you, Lou!”

“I love you too, gorgeous boy,” Louise hugged him tightly, trying her best to hide the tears that welled in her eyes as she held him close, knowing in her heart of hearts that this was something he should be giving to his mother, or father – not the housekeeper who was paid to take care of them, and the house.

Still, Louise had recognised a long time ago that the good pay wasn’t what was keeping her working for the Buckley family – it was the squirming little boy in her arms, and the bright-eyed teenage girl standing on the kitchen island, wise beyond her years and kinder than Louise could ever imagine any seventeen year old girl being.

“I want you to promise me something, sweetheart,” Louise said, pulling back so she could look at Evan, the little boy nodding at her furiously. “Never let anyone ruin that heart of gold.”

The team were sitting down to lunch, when Maddie arrived at the station, Olivia snuggled in a baby carrier strapped to Maddie’s chest, Buck’s sister carrying a heavy looking box. He was out of his chair and helping her before Maddie could even say hello, his sister planting a grateful kiss on his cheek.

“What’s this?” Buck couldn’t help but inquire, Chimney eagerly detaching his daughter from the carrier, holding her to his chest.

“It’s from Louise!” Maddie grinned, tapping on the mysterious box. “I thought you’d like to open it with me. I think she’s sent some of our old baby things she found in the attic – and rumour has it, there’s a present in there for you too.”

Buck laughed, thinking of their kindly housekeeper. In all the years Buck had been gone, Louise had never once forgotten a birthday, or Christmas. He’s always eagerly await the box he knew was coming from her, filled with cards from her, glittery drawings from her own grandchildren, and always – without fail – a box of Reeses pieces.

“Who’s Louise?” Eddie was the first to ask.

“Our housekeeper,” Buck mumbled, picking at the tape on the package as he replied. “From back home.”

He probably should have expected Hen’s reaction. “Your housekeeper? Damn, Buck, what kind of rich are your family?”

“Having people work for you and raise your kids for you kind of rich,” Buck replied shortly, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice as he replied, glancing over at Maddie for permission to open the package.

It took a hot minute to actually get the box open, and Buck couldn’t help but laugh as he noticed the photo Louise had stuck on top. It was of him and Maddie, and they were sitting in a paddling pool Buck recognised as being in Louise’s own garden. He must have been pretty young, judging by the goofy smile, and wild head of curls looking back up at him.

“Hey, when was this Mads?” Buck asked, knowing his sister would know. Maddie always did have a knack for remembering dates and events and birthdays.

Maddie tugged on Buck’s waist, smiling. “Your fifth birthday,” she said, taking the photo from Buck’s grasp. “I think it was the hottest day we’ve ever had in Pennsylvania, and Louise got so sick of being hot, she bundled us into her car, and took us to her house, because her husband had set up a pool. You had so much fun you actually made yourself sick.”

Hen’s laugh was a kind one, their friend coming around to look at the photo. “That sounds like Buck, alright,” she teased. “Buckaroo - look at those curls! You were a cute kid.”

“He was,” Maddie agreed. “I used to tell everyone he was my baby.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “You wanted this guy to be your kid?” he joked. “If he’s hyperactive now, I hate to think of what he was like as a kid.”

“Evan was such a sweet kid,” Maddie teased, still holding tightly to Buck’s waist. “I’d been an only child for ten years – when Buck arrived, it was like all my dreams came true. I had a real life doll to play with. Until you got old enough to be mad at me for trying to brush your hair.”

“You weren’t exactly gentle, Mads, I’m surprised I wasn’t bald,” Buck joked, rooting in the box. “She’s sent so much stuff!”

Maddie peered into the box, and the wicked grin on her face should have told Buck everything he needed to know. “How nice,” she smirked. “Louise has sent you on your favourite teddy bear.”

“I hate you.”

“Everyone,” Maddie declared triumphantly, pulling an outrageously purple bunny rabbit out of the box, one of it’s ears long since replaced with a carefully crafted flannel monstrosity that was a few inches too long (Louise was a wonder – but toy surgery had never been her strong point.) “Meet Ears, the teddy bear Evan slept with until he was oh, nineteen? Twenty?”

Buck couldn’t stop the way his face flushed bright red, rolling his eyes at his sisters antics. “I hate you,” he said firmly. “And you’re exaggerating. It was probably like sixteen,” he was never opposed to making fun of himself, and truth of it was that Buck had slept with the teddy bear in his bed right up until he stopped going home.

That had been at least twenty two.

“Anyway,” Buck plucked the rabbit from Maddie’s grip, grinning. “Olivia can have it now!”

“No way,” Chimney shook his head, making a show of covering his daughters eyes. “That thing will give my daughter nightmares, you can keep it Buck.”

“Aw, but it’s cute Chim! It’s like, four times her size.”

“Exactly! She’s going to think this giant purple monster is trying to eat her, and I’m trying to avoid putting my kid in therapy until at least college,” Chimney huffed, shoving a forkful of pasta into his mouth.

“He used to sing to it,” Maddie interjected.

“Maddie!”

“Okay, but what songs?” Hen asked, raising an eyebrow.

Maddie grinned wickedly. “Evan and Ears did a particularly gripping version of Wannabe, by the Spice Girls.”

Buck could do nothing except slump in a chair as the team descended into chaos around him, holding tightly to his long-forgotten bunny rabbit. “I hate you, Maddie.”

A whistle from the kitchen doorway distracted Buck from his dancing, and he couldn’t stop the way his face flushed a violent red as he noticed Louise, and her husband were standing in the doorway, the two of them cheering him on.

“Warn a guy!” Buck huffed, shaking his head, turning the music down, the radio set to some cheesy pop station, Buck having spent the morning happily dancing around to a mixture of the Backstreet Boys, and all the other boybands that were taking over the airwaves lately – he was just glad Louise and Frank had missed his pitiful rendition of Wannabe.

“And miss your dancing?” Louise teased, sneaking a look in the pan. “There’s not enough veggies in there, Evan.”

Buck rolled his eyes. “Lou, I can make myself an omelette.”

“Mm, I don’t think you can,” Louise said, nudging him out of the way so she could take over cooking. “You sure can dance, though, sweetheart.”

Frank echoed his wife’s laughter, sitting down at the kitchen island. “Maybe it’s the dance team you need to be on, not basketball,” he teased, nodding as Buck gestured at the coffee maker. He’d only made it a few minutes ago, knowing Louise and Frank were on their way.

“The dancing is for after the basketball,” Buck passed a coffee over to Frank, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“You feeling okay, kid?” Frank asked. “About the game.”

“Yeah – a little nervous, I guess,” Buck admitted. “It’s my senior year – if we don’t win this year, I’ll never get to win with them, and it sounds stupid, I know, but it would mean a lot.”

“It’s not stupid, kid,” Frank reassured, shaking his head. “You’ve put a lot of time and effort into your team over the years, it’s only fair you want to go out on top.”

“I guess,” Buck sighed, giving Louise a grateful smile as she set the omelette down on the kitchen island, gesturing for him to sit down.

“Are you worried about college offers?” Louise tried, clearly realising there was something more to Buck’s uneasy mood.

Buck shook his head. “I got them already,” he admitted. “I’ve been offered Northwestern, Duke, and Pennsylvania.”

“Evan!” Louise declared delightedly. “That’s amazing news! Aren’t you excited?”

Buck shrugged slightly. “I know mom wanted me to go to Columbia,” he said softly. “She’s going to be so upset when she finds out I got waitlisted.”

“Evan,” surprisingly, it was Frank who spoke. “You know how many colleges I got into?”

Buck shook his head.

Frank grinned. “ _None_ – not a single one,” he said. “You’ve gotten into three of the best in the country, so take that as a win. Wherever you end up going, you’re going to have a great time, and you’re going to meet great people, and you’ll get to learn some cool stuff. Be happy about that, and don’t think so much about how your mom might feel. Think about how you feel.”

“He’s right,” Louise said, throwing her husband a teasing glance. “And I don’t say that about my husband all too often. You have to think about you, Evan. What’s going to make you happy, hm?”

Buck knew what his answer was without much thinking. “I want to go to Duke,” he admitted. “They’ve got one of the best history programmes in the country.”

“See? How easy was that!” Louise beamed. “Now, eat up, and we’ll get going to your game. We came to see you win!”

Deciding where he wanted to go to college had been the easy part, in hindsight. Admitting to his parents that he wanted to go to a university neither of them had wanted him to apply to, to study something his father would disapprove of, was kind of harder.

The silence after he had announced his decision was even harder.

“Really?” his father has asked. “You want to study history?”

Buck nodded. “I really do, dad.”

“What about the business?” his dad inquired, leaning back in his office chair.

“I’ve thought about that,” Buck said, ignoring the way it felt like his heart was trying to claw its way out of his body at the mere thought of ever taking over Buckley industries. “I could do a double major – history, and economics. That way – “

“That way you’ll have the necessary background to get your MBA,” his father nodded. “Very good, Evan. I appreciate you taking the time to think seriously about this.”

Buck couldn’t stop the eager smile from appearing on his face. “So, can I study history?”

“You’re an adult now, Evan, I can’t tell you what to do,” his father said. “But I’m glad you are still asking my advice, all the same. I’d rather you solely focused on economics, but you are good at history. It would be a shame to let that talent go to waste. You have my blessing, Evan.”

“Thanks, dad – “

“But a double major won’t be easy,” his father interrupted. “You know that, right? It will involve a huge amount of work.”

“I know,” Buck nodded. “I can do it. The Buckley’s are hard workers, right?”

He’d always known the right things to say to get his father on his side – even briefly.

“That’s right, Evan,” his father had smiled, the expression not looking in the least bit natural on the mans face. “Buckley’s work hard.”

Buck was the kind of tired where he was pretty sure he could lie down on the floor of the station, and sleep like a baby. Every part of his body ached, his muscles screaming out for a hot shower and a long, long sleep.

“You okay, man?”

Buck looked up as Eddie entered the locker room, towelling off his hair. “I’m fine,” he nodded. “I’m just trying to force my legs to work so I can have a shower, and go home, and _die_.”

Eddie laughed, the sound a familiar comfort now, after all the years they’d been friends. “I feel you,” he sighed, rooting in his locker for his deodorant. “Today’s been rough.”

Buck nodded, suddenly distracted by his phone ringing. He knew who it was by the tone he had set for the contact, but he reached for it anyway, just to be sure.

Sure enough, ‘DAD’ flashed across the screen, Buck shaking his head as he declined the call.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Buck said, flicking the phone to silent. “It’s my dad.”

“You’re not in the mood to talk to him?” Eddie pushed, but in his own, Eddie kind of way, gentle in his prodding in a way that Buck was helpless to resist.

“I’m sure it’ll just end in an argument when I feel this tired and crappy,” Buck admitted, looking at his best friend. “He doesn’t exactly approve of me being a firefighter.”

Eddie looked surprised. “What parent isn’t proud of their son being a firefighter?” he questioned, tugging a fresh shirt on.

“The kind who wanted their son to take over the family business,” Buck sighed, feeling his phone vibrating again, rubbing roughly at his temples. “I feel like I’m getting a migraine,” he sighed, his voice sounding pitiful.

“Come on,” Eddie nudged. “You can shower at my place, and I’ll order us in some takeout.”

“It’s fine, Eddie – “

“You don’t have to talk to me about it,” Eddie interrupted, his voice firm. “I think you probably _need_ to talk about it – I think Maddie having a baby has dug up some memories for you, and I don’t know if they’re good, or bad, but they’re there, and we can all see it. But I’m not going to force you to talk to me – I will, however, force you to eat a gross amount of takeout with me, and then we’re going to have a proper nights sleep. Okay?”

Buck didn’t have it in him to argue. “Okay,” he said, his voice quiet as he let Eddie tug him up off the bench in the locker room, shoving Buck’s bag toward him. “Yeah, okay.”

Eddie’s house was familiar, and homely, in ways that overwhelmed Buck, sometimes. His childhood home hadn’t been the homeliest of places, and he figured that was why he liked the Diaz household so much. There was life, in Eddie’s house – shoes scattered by the door, drawings pinned to the fridge, photos of Eddie’s family dotted around in mismatching frames.

It was nice.

Buck had always felt comfortable, in Eddie’s house – in Eddie’s life. He knew where everything was in the kitchen, knew Eddie had left a box of Buck’s spare toiletries under the sink, knew there was a bottle of Buck’s favourite shower gel in the caddy.

It felt more like home than anywhere else ever had.

Rubbing most of the wetness out of his hair, Buck turned out the bathroom light, padding toward the living room, making sure to ease the door shut behind him, mindful that Christopher was sleeping soundly.

“I may have overdone it,” Eddie admitted, glancing at the feast of Chinese takeout that was spread across his coffee table, more cartons than the two of them would be able to eat - despite their matching massive appetites – facing Buck. “I pretend I’m not like my abuela, but I definitely am – comforting people with food is all I know,” he joked, his smile soft, and familiar, the kind of smile that Eddie reserved for the people closest to him, Chris, abuela – _Buck_.

Buck felt really damn lucky sometimes to know he was in the very exclusive inner circle of Eddie Diaz’s life.

It was a good place to be.

Buck gave Eddie a grateful smile, sitting down on the floor across from his friend, beginning to help himself to some of the food. He hadn’t quite realised how hungry he was until he was faced with actual food, and he was actually quite glad for Eddie’s over-ordering. They’ve have leftovers for days, at least.

“Today was hard,” Eddie commented, breaking the comfortable silence they had fallen into. Buck liked this Eddie – the one who was comfortable, soft around the edges in a way the version of Eddie Diaz he presented to the wider world wasn’t, his dark hair free of product and falling messily over this forehead. “Do you ever get used to these kinds of days?”

Buck shook his head. Although the shower had helped, he still felt aches and pains across his entire body, hours of hauling heavy equipment and hoses as they tried to clear one of the worst car accidents they’d had in months taking its toll on his physical wellbeing – and mental. You could be a first responder your whole life, and watching people die because there’s no way you could save them, no matter how good a firefighter, or EMT you are, was never going to be anything except hard.

“Athena told me once, that’s why we wear a uniform,” Buck said, his voice quiet. “To be able to leave the bad days behind when they’re over – hang them up in our locker and move on.”

Athena’s advice had stuck with him, all those years.

She did give good advice.

“Do you think it’s that easy?” Eddie inquired.

“No,” Buck sighed, pausing to spoon some orange chicken into his mouth, taking a second to savour the taste. It was the kind of day where the only cure was going to be good food, and sleep. “But we have to focus on the people we do save, right? I guess I just hope one day, it all balances out.”

“I think it will,” Eddie said, offering Buck one of the beers he’d brought from the kitchen, Buck accepting with a grateful smile. “I just wish we didn’t have to have days like this,” he said. “A drunk driver has so much power to just ruin so many lives in the blink of an eye. Do you think they ever even consider that, when they get behind the wheel?”

“I think they’re in pain,” Buck said, setting his fork down. “And I think some of us are better at dealing with that than others.”

“Like you?”

Eddie’s words were simple, but that didn’t make them any less true. Of all the people in Buck’s life, Eddie Diaz was the one who knew him best – Eddie had seen him at his worst, his very worst, and he’d stayed. Buck was more grateful for that then he had the words for. If Eddie hadn’t done what he did when Buck was recovering from the ladder truck bombing, Buck was pretty certain he wouldn’t have survived it. Before he had even come with Christopher in tow, determined to cheer Buck up, Eddie would come alone, and he’d turf Buck out of his makeshift bed, and he’d change his sheets, and clothes, and he’d never judge Buck for the sad, halfway to disgusting way he was existing – because it had never been living, not really.

“I thought I wore my heart on my sleeve,” Buck replied, thinking of the teasing that would always come from the rest of the team. He knew it wasn’t wrong – Buck had always been the kind of person to wear his emotions right out in the open, and he’d never been able to shut that off.

“Sure,” Eddie said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re pretty secretive about your past. I know how you’re feeling, most of the time, and I really admire you for that – for being able to be so open with how you feel.”

“But?”

Of course there was a but.

“I feel like sometimes, I don’t know all that much about who you were before you were at the 118,” Eddie admitted, taking a swig of his beer. “I know I’m not one to judge, man, I’m not exactly out here telling you all stories about my childhood, but you know where I came from – El Paso, the army. But you? I don’t know anything about who you were before this life, except that you’re from Pennsylvania. I learned more today watching you decline your dad’s phone call than I ever have before.”

Buck realised his friend was right. He had – very intentionally – kept his cards close to his chest about his life before Los Angeles, about who he was before he’d been Evan Buckley, one of LAFD’s finest. “I know,” he said, not sure of what he wanted to say next.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Eddie said, and the worst part was – Buck knew his friend meant it. Buck could say he wasn’t ready to talk, and Eddie would move on, and it wouldn’t matter. They’d just move on, and talk about Chris, about work, about plans for the weekend, and it wouldn’t be weird, or tense.

Eddie was too good for his own good, sometimes. It was one of the many things Buck loved about his best friend.

“I know,” Buck gave his friend a reassuring smile. “I mean – it’s probably not even as big a deal as I’m making it out to be. Keeping it secret probably – probably implies its all a lot worse than it ever was.”

“You don’t need to invalidate your own feelings, Buck.”

Buck fixed his friend with a curious glare. “You need to stop going to Frank so often,” he grumbled good-naturedly, Eddie’s laugh ensuring his teasing had hit him. “My parents aren’t bad people – really, they’re not. Maddie and I never needed anything – we went to good schools, played all the sports we wanted, I got a nice car when I was sixteen.”

“But?” Eddie prodded, always prodding.

“They weren’t exactly loving people,” Buck admitted. “Maddie always said that they’re just two people who never should have become parents, and I think she’s right. Kids were just something to tick off their to-do list, they didn’t have us because they wanted to be someone’s mom and dad. I – they had Maddie because they couldn’t not have a kid to pass the family business to. If they didn’t have kids, my dad’s siblings would get it all, and that would never do.”

“And you?”

And you.

How was he going to say this?

“They never wanted me,” Buck said simply. “You don’t wait ten years to have another kid when you barely wanted to have the first one. I was a mistake, simple as. Any interest they had in kids had long since been used up by time I came along – they were even less invested in me than they had been in Maddie.”

Buck could see the tension forming in Eddie’s shoulders. His best friend was a good dad – the best dad Buck knew, actually, though he’d never tell Chimney that. Eddie was a great dad, and Buck knew he was sitting there, trying to comprehend not wanting your own kid.

“They didn’t hit me or anything,” Buck continued quickly. “They just weren’t interested. I had a nanny, until I started kindergarten, and after that, Maddie and our housekeeper - Louise – raised me. And then it was just Louise.”

Eddie gave Buck’s wrist a squeeze. “How old were you, when Maddie left?”

“I was eight, when she left for college,” Buck explained. “She came home for every holiday, for random weekends – her being away at college was hard at the beginning because I don’t think I understood where she was, but I got used to it. It – it got harder when she met Doug, and I don’t blame her for that, but she still left. You know? And now I know she left for a horrible situation, but…”

“You didn’t know that then,” Eddie supplied helpfully.

“Exactly,” Buck said. “Back then, I saw her fall in love with this amazing doctor – and that’s the worst part Eddie, when I first met Doug, I was fifteen, and this guy just seemed so cool, and I thought Maddie was leaving for a proper family of her own. He – he used to come to my basketball games at the beginning. My parents never even did that.”

“Abusers don’t exactly broadcast their abusive tendencies from the beginning, Buck,” Eddie said softly.

“I know,” Buck said, and he did, he did know, he knew that all too well, now. “But I was still jealous. I thought – I thought she stopped coming home because she didn’t want to have to raise her little brother anymore.”

“You were still a kid,” it was as though Eddie could sense his guilt. “You didn’t know any better.”

“I know,” Buck said, again. “Still. I hated her for leaving me in that big old house alone. We – I mean, the housekeeper probably gave it away, but my family are rich, Eddie. Like, _really_ rich.”

Eddie flashed him a teasing grin. “I did always wonder how you afford that fancy apartment all by yourself,” he said.

“I hate money,” Buck blurted. “I know that sounds insane, but I hate money. My parents always figured throwing money at problems would solve them. Evan has too much energy – enrol him in expensive piano lessons and get him a private baseball coach and get him to try out for sports teams – oh, and maybe we should try a child psychologist, and see if medicating him calms him down. Evan gets bored on his own, during the summer – send him to sleepaway camp for a whole month. Evan wants his parents to pay attention to him? Buy him a fucking sports car.”

He rubbed roughly at his forehead, trying to calm the anger he could feel bubbling inside him. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “That probably sounds ungrateful.”

“Maybe,” Eddie said, shifting closer to Buck. “But you can make me understand why it’s not.”

Buck couldn’t help but feel grateful for the chance. “I – I know how lucky I am,” he began, wanting to clarify that first. “My parents are give your kids a trust fund kind of rich. I don’t need to worry about money. I get to do nice things for the people I love with the money I do have because I never have to worry about my account running low – that’s a good feeling,” he said. “But deep down, a part of me hates every penny I’ve got sitting in that account, because it’s not a replacement for never feeling loved, or wanted by your parents.”

Typical.

Buck was on the verge of tears already.

He rubbed roughly at his eyes, shaking his head. “You know, when I first met you, I couldn’t help but wonder how many weapons you handled that were made by my family,” he admitted, catching Eddie’s furrowed brow out of the corner of his eye. “My family owns one of the biggest weapons manufacturing companies in the United States.”

“ _Jesus_ , Buck.”

“I know,” Buck hummed. “I’m the fifth James Buckley in my family. James Evan Buckley, to be exact,” he said. “And all my dad ever wanted was for me to take over the family business, and I went rogue and became a firefighter instead. I – I realise this is the biggest rich white boy problem I could have, but it’s hard sometimes, knowing how disappointed he is in me when I spent the first twenty-two years of my life bending over backwards trying to be the perfect son, and none of it was ever enough – and it fucking broke me, Eddie.”

Eddie laughed, bumping his shoulder against Buck’s. “Maybe it’s a rich white boy problem,” he teased. “But it’s still a problem for you. That means it matters. And for what it’s worth – you’ve never come across as a rich white boy, Buck,” he said, Buck helpless to do anything but smile at his friends admission. “I don’t exactly get the impression you’d fit in that world all too well.”

Buck laughed. “God, no,” he said. “I – God, I always forget about this, but I took a course called ‘Sexual Pleasure in the Modern World’ as part of my major at college and when my dad found out I thought his head was actually going to explode.”

Eddie snorted, the sound of his uninhibited laughter making Buck relax against Eddie’s couch, reaching for his forgotten beer. “Of course you took that as an elective,” he shook his head. “God, what was that even about?”

“It was really interesting, actually,” Buck admitted, thinking back to the elective he’d taken for the sole goal of pissing his father off, the course turning out to be one of the most interesting things he’d studied in four years at Duke. “It was about stuff like the role of colonialism in relation to sexuality, and how violence is ingrained in societal views of sexual fantasy.”

“Jesus, Buck, where did you go to college?” Eddie spluttered out.

“Duke,” Buck admitted, glancing over at his friend. “Am I ticking off all the clichés, now? Daddy issues, vested interest in ruining the family legacy, lengthy monologue about money being the worst thing ever, over-priced education?”

Eddie laughed. “Yeah, you are a bit,” he admitted, and Buck knew it didn’t mean it in a bad way – not really. Eddie wasn’t malicious like that.

“Good,” Buck sighed happily. “I decided a long time ago that if I was going to be the family disappointment, I was at least going to do it well.”

“You’ve got to tell me more about this rebellious phase.”

“It wasn’t really a phase,” Buck shrugged. “I mostly did what they wanted me to, until one day, when I was sitting in front of all these acceptance letters for the MBA my dad wanted me to do, trying to pick which one would make him happiest, and I just – couldn’t do it anymore. I packed a bag, booked a one way flight to South America, and I haven’t been back since.”

“That’s another cliché,” Eddie teased, reaching for one of the now cold spring rolls.

“It gets worse,” Buck laughed. “I grew my hair out and became a yoga teacher for a little while. And then I started hooking up with this guy from Argentina, so I ended up following him home and worked in his dads bar for six months before I had a meltdown about him apparently wanting to marry me and run the bar together. A week later, I tried out for the SEALs – and then I moved to LA.”

Eddie was quiet.

Buck couldn’t help but worry now, as Eddie didn’t reply to his story. “Eds?”

“Sorry,” Eddie squeezed Buck’s knee tightly. “I just didn’t realise you liked guys, is all.”

“I guess I forget about it, sometimes,” Buck said. “Not the liking guys, part – the part where not everyone automatically knows.”

Eddie nodded, his brow furrowed, again. Sometimes, Buck wished he could just reach across and push at Eddie’s forehead until he was relaxed again, relieve his best friend of all of his worries and stress. “Do your parents know?”

Buck nodded. “Surprisingly, they didn’t care,” he admitted, thinking back to when he’d come out to his parents after the end of his freshman year at college. “Apparently they’re more liberal than I ever gave them credit for.”

“That’s good,” Eddie’s reply was shorter than Buck had expected.

Buck didn’t question it.

“It’s this kind of thing that makes me feel like such an idiot,” Buck admitted. “I grew up with everything I ever wanted, you know? And so many people don’t get that, and I know I should be grateful, but my housekeeper _raised_ me, Eddie. Her and her husband used to come to my basketball games because my parents never cared and I just – all I ever wanted was for them to love me, and it took a long time for me to realise that they’re just not capable of it.”

“I can’t imagine not loving your kid,” Eddie shook his head. “Christopher is the best thing that ever happened to me. I loved him before I knew him, you know? And I love him so much sometimes it feels like I wasn’t made to deal with all that love, like it’s going to just make me explode, one day.”

“I wish I had that,” Buck admitted, leaning his head against Eddie’s shoulder. “That’s what I wanted from them. I – I feel like I should be more grateful, but I’m not, and that’s why I never talk about them, because I’m not sure I can deal with people’s judgement.”

“Judgement?”

“My parents didn’t love me, sure, but I had enough money to go and do whatever I wanted with my life, no consequences,” Buck looked at Eddie, craning his neck into an awkward position so he could try and gauge his friends reaction. “Who wouldn’t judge me for being – for still being fucked up about it all when I was still able to build the kind of life I wanted for myself, consequences be dammed?”

“I’m not going to judge you, Ev,” Eddie said, the rare use of Buck’s first name making Buck’s heart thunder in his chest. “I didn’t live your life. You did.”

Buck could feel the tears bubbling up in his throat again as he tried to speak, the words coming in gasps that felt like they’d been ripped from his throat. “I was never enough for them, Eddie,” he managed to say, tears flowing down his cheeks. “And that’s still hard to deal with.”

Eddie had gathered Buck into his arms before Buck could even say another word, holding him close as he cried, rocking him gently the way Buck had seen him do so often with Christopher, Eddie’s soothing words not really registering with him, Buck only really able to focus on the vibrations that speaking caused in Eddie’s chest as he clung to his best friend and cried what felt like twenty-seven years of tears out at once.

“I’ve got you,” Buck managed to focus long enough to hear Eddie’s promise. “I’ve got your back, Evan.”

It wasn’t unusual for Buck to wake up in Eddie’s bed. His best friend had stopped letting him crash on the couch a long time ago, and so the surroundings of Eddie’s bedroom were familiar, as he woke up, his eyes feeling as though they’d been glued shut with tears.

“You know,” Eddie’s voice was quiet, Buck twisting underneath the covers so he could look at his best friend, Eddie still looking half asleep, his pillow tucked under his chin. “Last night, you said there was no consequences to you building the life you wanted.”

“Yeah,” Buck was confused as to why Eddie was bringing it up again. “There wasn’t.”

Eddie fixed him with a curious look. “When did you last see your own family, Evan?”

In hindsight, if Buck had known that Fourth of July party would be the last Buckley family gathering he’d ever attend, he probably would have enjoyed it more – but he didn’t, because he didn’t know, he hadn’t made that decision yet.

So, it had been like any other day.

Until it hadn’t been.

“Evan,” Rebecca slid into the empty chair next to him, pushing her sunglasses up her nose. “I don’t know how you deal with all their energy,” she gestured toward the kids who were gleefully running around the garden, spraying each other with a hose.

Rebecca was hosting the family party this year, at her lake house, and that in itself was a blessing. Rebecca didn’t really care if her yard was turned into a swamp by the youngest members of the Buckley family – it always made Buck feel more at ease.

Buck grinned. “It’s fun,” he shrugged, taking a sip of the lemonade he was drinking. “It reminds me of being a kid.”

“You always were the sweetest kid,” Rebecca hummed, gently brushing Buck’s hair off his forehead. “Have you made a decision about school yet?”

“Did my dad ask you to ask me that?”

“Maybe,” Rebecca said. “Or maybe I just want to know what my favourite nephew is planning to do in the fall.”

“I’m your favourite?”

“You know you always have been,” Rebecca smiled, giving Buck’s shoulder a squeeze, the heat of the summer day finally beginning to fade, the backyard returning to a more tolerable temperature as the sky turned from a bright blue, to a dusky pink.

“Thanks,” Buck hummed, thinking for a second. “Did you ever struggle with all of this? The expectation of it all?”

Rebecca looked thoughtful for a second. “Your dad has always wanted to be like your grandfather,” she began, glancing across the yard to where Buck’s parents are. “It’s guided every decision he’s made in his life. Boys want to be like their fathers.”

Buck didn’t.

Buck couldn’t think of anything worse than being James Buckley.

“It was easier for me, in a way, because our parents didn’t really expect me to get involved with the business – I did it because I was interested in it,” Rebecca continued. “But can I let you in on a secret, Evan?”

Buck nodded.

“Life is short,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “Life is so much shorter than you imagine. I’m forty two, and sometimes I just sit here, and I wonder where the hell the last twenty years of my life went, because sometimes, I still think I’m your age. Life is short, Evan, and that’s all the more reason to find something that actually makes you happy.”

Buck was quiet. “That’s not an opinion my father shares,” he replied, voice soft.

“No,” Rebecca said. “But can I let you in on another secret? Your father won’t be around forever, and when he’s not here anymore, you’re going to want to be living a life that makes you happy, and not a life that he decided was best for you.”

Buck leaned back in his chair, sighing. “He’d never forgive me.”

“Maybe not,” Rebecca shrugged. “But you’re the one who has to live with yourself for the rest of your life.”

“That’s not a daunting prospect at all.”

“It’s not, if you find what makes you happy,” Rebecca shook her head. “What makes you happy, Evan?”

It took a second for Buck to answer.

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Buck made his decision as he watched the fireworks that night, his cousin Casey passed out in his lap.

He was leaving.

He had to leave now, or else he never would.

And Buck couldn’t imagine a worse prospect than following in his fathers footsteps.

He was a coward, in the end. He left a note.

Evan Buckley left a note and got on a one way flight to Sao Paulo and somewhere between Pennsylvania and his stop-over flight in Miami, he left Evan Buckley and the part he’d played for so long behind too, and he became Buck.

 _Just_ , Buck.

“Five years,” Buck replied quietly, eyes welling with tears. “Six, in the summer.”

Eddie’s reply was so low that if Buck hadn’t been half lying on top of his best friend, he probably wouldn’t have heard it at all. “That sounds a lot like a consequence to me, Buck.”

Buck turned twenty-eight with just the right amount of fanfare. Eddie threw him a birthday barbeque at his house, and everyone from the 118 had come, and Eddie’s family had come, and Buck had been smothered in kisses from abuela, and Pepa, and Chris had made him a card that was about ninety percent glitter glue, and he’d ended the night with Olivia falling asleep on his chest, the little girl bigger now, growing up too quickly already.

“You can hand her back if you want a beer, Evan,” Maddie teased, sipping on her own drink. The crowd had long since thinned out, Christopher having been put to bed against his will, only Eddie, Chim, Maddie, Hen, and Karen left.

“Nope,” Buck hummed happily, taking a second to enjoy the feeling of Olivia’s tiny breaths against his neck. “I’m happy here.”

“I can’t believe you still won’t let us buy you birthday presents, Buckaroo,” Hen huffed, her feet in Karen’s lap.

“I don’t need anything!” Buck replied. He’d put a ban on the 118 buying him Christmas, or birthday presents, claiming he didn’t want or need anything. It was the honest to God truth – Buck could go and buy himself whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. It was the people, he needed – his friends and their love.

“There’s nothing in the world you want us to buy you?” Hen raised an eyebrow.

Buck glanced toward Maddie, who gave him an encouraging smile. “Maddie and I inherited enough money from our parents to buy whatever we want ten times over,” he admitted, voice quiet. “But all I ever needed was this – a family. I didn’t have that growing up.”

Hen’s face softened, and she held her beer up. “I’ll cheers to that, Buck – to our wonderfully weird little family,” she said, everyone else following her lead.

It was true. Against all odds, they’d come together to create this wonderful, perfectly imperfect little family of their own, and Buck loved it. He loved having people who loved him so loudly and freely, never asking anything of him, only ever needing him to be himself, to be their Buck.

This – this was what made him happy.

His family.

“Cheers,” Buck echoed quietly, leaning more fully against Eddie as the sun fully went down, the dusky pink skies replaced with the darkness of night, the solar powered lamps dotted around Eddie’s garden slowly flickering to life, bathing them all in a soothing warmth.

Life was pretty perfect.

(Buck should have known it would all go wrong.)

A few days after his birthday, Buck’s phone went off at an unnaturally early hour of the morning, and he couldn’t help but grin as he noted it was Louise, requesting to FaceTime him. He could never be mad at her for waking him up.

“Lou! I thought you were going to call me on my birthday,” he greeted, smiling widely. He’d been expecting a call from her on his birthday, and he’d been surprised when she hadn’t actually called – she usually got right in there, before his day had even begun.

“I know, I’m sorry sweetheart,” Louise’s voice was quiet, and measured.

Something was wrong.

“What’s wrong?”

“I – I don’t know how to say this Evan,” she said. “But you weren’t answering your parents calls, and you need to know, now, you and Maddie both need to know.”

“What’s happened?”

The line crackled for a second, Louise’s silence deafening. “Your father is dying, Evan.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote my own buckley begins because i couldn't wait a year. thank you, lockdown.
> 
> second chapter won't be far off this one!


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